Oak Slough Farm

Wake-up call

Last week the power went out and immediately stopped the heart and soul of our farm – our well pump.  Once I realized what was happening, it almost stopped my heart as well, and I had to run around turning off sprinklers and hose bibs before all the water drained from our pressure tank.  Thankfully, there was enough water left in the tank to finish washing up the vegetables we were packing up for our Saturday morning Bend and Downtwon Ale House deliveries, and thankfully the power came back on later in the day. Nevertheless, it was a wake-up call that we really need to do more than occasionally talk about getting a generator that can run the pump.  This week is half over and we are still working on that.

Hay  

We have been irrigating about two acres of hay ground to cut the hay for garden mulch.  Unfortunately, the grass has been fighting a losing battle with the starthistle.  We were told that irrigation would kill the starthistle, or at least give the grass the growing advantage, but that does not seem to be the case on our farm.  So, we now have two acres of irrigated starthistle.  Hopefully, Asa will be able to mow it before the thistle spikes get too developed and maybe we’ll still use it as mulch.  So, we decided to give up on the hay field this year.  It is the field you see when you first come onto the farm and it is the field we mostly look at from our house, so we are very sad about that.  However, we will no longer have to spend time watering it.  We were using twenty-one 30’-long aluminum sprinkler pipes to create one long line down the length of the field to water it.  We (mostly Asa and Kat) had to move the line about 10 times to get through the width of the field.

K  

Last week I wrote about our zucchini plants not producing as much fruit as they should.  We called the Red Bluff extension office for help and Ryan came to visit our farm.  He wasn’t sure what to make of the plants, so he took several tissue samples and said it could take up to five days to get results.  This week, we got the news that the plants are low in potassium.  I think this is good news because we should be able to supplement them organically with more potassium.  We’ve been doing the kelp/compost tea, but maybe not enough and Jessica is going to investigate other possible options.

Recipe – Roasted Beets and Carrots

This is a super simple one that tastes so good!  Kat made it for us for lunch this weekend.  Just cut the beets and carrots into small chunks (like ½”), put them in a roasting pan, and coat with olive oil and salt.  Bake at a hot 425 degrees.  Stir them occasionally, about every 15 minutes.  Depending on how big you cube them will determine how long to cook them.  Ours took about 45 minutes.  You can tell when they are done because they are soft and cooked up.  Kat served ours with reheated (i.e. fried) mashed potatoes.  Delicious!

Wind or solar

The other big thing we have on our to-do list is figure out how to get some alternative energy production on our farm.  We use a lot of electricity to run the well pump and we also use a lot of it to heat the greenhouse during the late winter/early spring.  We keep talking about getting it done, but it’s hard to find time to make it happen.  We were pretty set on the solar, but due to being on the bend of the river, the wind blows a lot; so, having a windmill seemed like a cool idea, too.  I wish we had more money and time!

Have a good week, and may our wishes come true.  Josh